


Step into this world

by nieded



Series: Good Omens Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Garden of Eden, M/M, March Flash Fiction, Prompt Fill, Snake Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29911899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nieded/pseuds/nieded
Summary: For the March Flash Fiction prompt: Trapped Together. Aziraphale and Crowley are brand new after the Garden and get into a predicament with quicksand.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens Prompt Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170071
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Step into this world

“Bugger this, not you again,” the demon Crawly said. His face had taken a surly turn when he saw the angel from the Eastern Gate. 

“Well, perhaps if you stopped following me, we wouldn’t keep running into each other,” Aziraphale said with a sniff. His white robes had turned a dusty brown, and the tips of his white, fluffy hair had gone crispy in the sun. 

Crawly huffed and kicked a spray of sand at his enemy. “ _Following you?_ Following you!” he said, outraged. “Psh. As if.” He crossed his arms and then grimaced. “Well, I mean, do _you_ know where you’re supposed to be going?” 

Offended, the angel stepped back and reached for his sword. He fumbled and grasped at his empty hilt before remembering he didn’t have it anymore. He instead rested his hand on his hip as though he had intended to put it there all along. “Like I would tell you.”

“So… you don’t know where you’re going, do you?” 

Aziraphale scoffed at the sneer on the demon’s face, but he had to admit he was a bit lost. The walls of the Garden had disappeared the second they stepped out into the wide, vast desert. There were no landmarks to be seen and no humans either. “They won’t be too happy Upstairs when they find out I’ve lost the humans.”

Crawly raised his eyebrows in surprise and stopped himself from mocking the angel. Instead, he schooled his face into something less abrasive, though it was hard around such an easy target. “Surely, there are other angels following them?”

“Oh no, it’s just me. The others were recalled back to Heaven.” Aziraphale wrung his hands. “I guess this is—ah—my punishment for, you know.” When Crawly’s eyebrows rose even higher, he sighed. “For giving away the sword.” 

“Huh,” the demon said in genuine surprise. “I thought Upstairs would reward you for that.” 

“You’re not being punished, are you?” 

The sun beat down on the two beings, though the snakier of the two seemed to be basking in it a little more, skin gone bronzed and glowing. “Me? Nah. Satan rewarded me for the bang-up job I did with the apple ‘n’ all that.” He spread his hands out towards the horizon. “Free reign of the humans until further notice.”

His gloating fell short in the silence that followed. Aziraphale blinked at him and gestured at the vast expanse of sand in front of them with nary a human in sight. “Congratulations,” he said, voice wry. Then he sighed and his shoulders fell. “All right, well, I guess we’re stuck together. I see a set of footprints off that way.” He pointed vaguely left.

Crawly frowned, almost apologetic. “Yeah, no, I think that was me. Saw it earlier and tried following it but ended up in a circle.” At first, he had enjoyed the novel sensation of hot sand between his toes, but even the serpent part of himself eventually desired water and a shady place to rest. That had been the most excellent thing about the Garden, all the verdant vegetation and bubbling brooks. It was properly idyllic. He pointed off in the opposite direction. “What if we followed the sun that way?”

Aziraphale sniffed, arms crossed over his chest. “And what good would that do?” He was hardly the same angel Crawly met on the parapets, nervous but sweet. The heat had evaporated all of his goodwill and replaced it with a rather boisterous sunburn and snippy attitude. 

“At least we’ll know we’re not going in a circle.”

“Fine.” 

The angel huffed and stomped off in the direction of the setting sun, Crawly trailing behind. They went that way for some time in silence. What was there to say? _Lovely time of the year, isn’t it? By the way, I’m so sorry for getting us all kicked out of the Garden._ He glanced over at the angel, curious. How could Heaven think staying on Earth was a punishment? Even with all the endless sand, he loved it here. Freedom was at his fingertips. He’d discovered eating and sleeping, plus the other thing he caught the humans doing that he wasn’t too sure about yet. It had involved a lot of squirming and bumping. He did love a good wriggle, he supposed. 

The humans were great as well, a curious lot. They didn’t have all the knowledge that angels and demons had, but they had the intelligence and the determination to learn. Crawly was excited to see what they would do, that is if he could ever find them again. 

Just then, the angel let out a yelp which jarred him from his thoughts. He whipped around to look at Aziraphale, who had one foot sunk into the sand. They both stood there stunned, watching his limb sink further down, centimetre by centimetre.

“Well, why’d you do that for?” 

Aziraphale let out a frantic, annoyed grunt. “I beg your pardon! I didn’t mean to do this. I just stepped here and—and sunk!” 

Crawly frowned, more perplexed than anything. Hell hadn’t mentioned that something like this could happen. Sandy was gritty and a bit annoying, but it wasn’t supposed to eat people. “Just pull it out.”

Aziraphale hoisted up his robes, revealing a pale flash of thigh. The desert heat suddenly seemed hotter and dryer despite the setting sun. Then, he set to tugging his foot. The more he struggled, the more he sunk, it seemed. Crawly had seen him lift several boulders without much of a sweat, so he knew the angel was strong enough. 

The angel had descended up to his knee and bent his other leg where it supported him on solid ground. He slipped forward and gulped when his other leg began to fall too. He looked up at the demon. “Help?”

Crawly stroked his chin for a moment, assessing the situation with no real urgency. “Wouldn’t be very demonic of me, would it?” 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. His fingers dug into the fabric of his robe, twisting it with anxiety. “I really didn’t want to be the first angel to have to fill out a discorporation form. How embarrassing.” His eyes went big and pleading.

Crawly shuddered at the mention of _paperwork_ and looked back towards the setting sun. They had trekked together for about an hour and found no humans in sight. The rest of the search would be lonely without the angel, snippy though he might be. He sighed in a loud, dramatic fashion, making sure Aziraphale knew just how put-upon he was. “Fine. I’ll help but just this once.” 

Aziraphale’s face lit up. “Oh! Oh, thank you,” he said, voice gone warm and bright.

Crawly blushed and tamped down the squirmy feeling he had in his gut. He scooted closer to the edge of the sinkhole and bent down. “Maybe I can dig you out?” he thought aloud. With his long fingers, he reached down and scooped some of the sand away from the angel’s leg. Just as he flung it to the side, more sand spilt forward and filled the hole. He grunted and tried again, this time digging deeper, achieving the same fruitless result. 

He planted his hands on either side of Aziraphale’s leg to rest for a moment, shifting his hair from his eyes with a shake of his head. Then he looked up and found a rather wide-eyed Azirapahle staring down at him. Crawly became aware of the angel’s body heat, his hips mere inches from his face. He felt the smooth skin of his knee brush against his fingers and then lower down his calves. In fact, Crawly realised as he looked down, his hands were sinking into the sand, buffering either side of the angel’s leg. 

“Ah, bugger,” he said when he realised his mistake and again when he looked up and found himself face-to-crotch with Aziraphale. It reminded him of when he had seen Eve and Adam in a similar position doing the wriggling, squirming activity. Thank Satan, his hair was covering his face enough to hide his blush. “I—uh—” His voice croaked as he stammered. “I think I have an idea.”

They both sunk a little deeper, the sand well above Aziraphale’s knee. “Please do elaborate. If you haven’t noticed, our time is limited.” 

“To be fair, my face is a lot closer to suffocating than yours is,” Crawly said, his tone defensive. “And I’m only stuck here because you asked for help. See if I do that again.”

The angel let out a pained sound and grimaced as the sand shifted around them. The demon’s knees and ankles were swallowed up as well, and the sinkhole seemed to be getting wider as well as deeper. “What. Is. Your. Plan?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Right. I think if I transform into a snake, I can get on top of the surface. You’ll have to hold on to my tail, and I can pull you out.” He’d spent enough time in his other shape on the sand to know he could make this work. His serpent body had a larger surface area, and he could use his belly to push off the sand, resisting sinking. “Give me a mo’.” 

He shimmied and felt a shiver start from the top of his skull down to his toes as his body shifted and lengthened. His unfortunate positioning forced his snout to butt against Aziraphale’s thigh, feeling his searing angelic heat. Still, he quickly undulated around the angel’s legs without limbs, so his tail was facing him. With swift movements, he kept his body shifting, the sides of his belly never touching the sand for long enough to sink. 

Aziraphale did not hesitate, gripping the base of his tail with two firm hands. “Go!” he shouted. It took all of his strength and wit to hang onto the squirming tail as Crawly began to pull away in quick, jerking movements. For a moment, Aziraphale thought he was doomed as he tipped forward, his chest planting into the sand as Crawly pulled at his upper half, his lower half still stuck. Then he felt the earth begin to shift. “It’s working!”

Crawly took gulping, hissing breaths, sand kicking up around him as he twisted with all of his might. Aziraphale’s hands felt strange, wrapped around the junction where his body ended and his tail began, causing curious shivers to shoot upward through his undulating spine. He writhed forward until they had cleared a good few meters out of the sinkhole.

Eventually, Aziraphale let go, panting. He rolled onto his back, arms spread wide with his fingers dug into the grainy sand where it was stable and safe. Crawly shifted back to his human form instantly, face hot and flushed, his body singing. 

“Well then,” the angel said, brushing off his robes. “I should say thank you.”

The demon shook his head, a little dazed. “I think not.” He wasn’t sure what to feel about it and had a weird shaking feeling in his limbs as he remembered being so close to Aziraphale’s body in the sinkhole, close enough to taste. “In fact, let’s never speak of it again.”

“Quite right. How embarrassing! Sand that sinks like water!”

The sun had finally set, for which Crawly was grateful. He could hide his wide eyes and flushed face in the darkness. He blinked as his vision adjusted and then pointed in the distance. “Look, there!” 

They both turned and followed his finger. In the dark, they could see a flicker of light like fire. “The humans,” Aziraphale said with a surprised breath. He clapped the demon on the shoulder and squeezed it before taking off towards the humans. “Well done.”

“Ngk,” Crawly said and scrambled to catch up.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes and References
> 
> 1\. This was written for the March Flash Fiction event hosted by [@kedreeva](https://kedreeva.tumblr.com/post/644853357389938688/the-fifth-prompt-for-march-flash-fiction-is-the) on tumblr.
> 
> 2\. Title comes from Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" because I think I'm hilarious.
> 
> Edit: After posting this, I realized that some of you might not [get the Britney reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-K1T-NTA78). This is an iconic performance in which she dances with an enormous snake near the end.


End file.
